Pepper's nephew
by Siraminf
Summary: While there are many stories where Harry is related to one of the Avengers, what if the one he was related to was one Virginia Potts? Up for adoption
1. Chapter 1

-Soo...you're telling me that you're a relative of Pepper...- -who's Pepper?- -Virginia Potts, everyone calls her Pepper...anyway! You'er her nephew or something like that, and you ran away from home, and instead of gong to the house of some friend, you came all the way over here? What kind of reasoning is that? Kids who run away from home don't usually plan much beyond 'getting away from there'... I should know that-  
Tony watched the boy in front of him getting more and more nervous, he probably was on the verge of tears by now, but trying desperately to hide it, he still didn't know if his story was true, but he had to admire his initiative -Pepper! I don't know if he's really related to you, but he's definitely staying, I like the way he thinks!-  
-OK Harry, you can stay here, this is your room, that's your bathroom, there's a kitchen just down that corridor in case you're hungry, don't hesitate to take anything you want and don't bother cleaning up, if there's anything ask JARVIS- - Who's JARVIS?- -my AI, he's present in the whole building, just talk out loud and he'll answer...I think that's everything, wanna see my lab?-  
-ok Harry, meet Dummy, You and Butterfingers! They're my robots, to make sure I have some assistants who won't make some terrible idiotical things, and won't complain or tell anyone else when I do- -what's that?- - oh, it started out as a non-lethal weapon to disable someone's nervous system temporarily without causing any harm, I got the idea from Star Trek's phasers, however for now all it does is create a beam of light that doesn't do much- -sSo it's a fancy-looking flashlight?-


	2. Chapter 2

Pepper soon discovered that Tony and Harry went along quite well, which wasn't exactly positive. Tony was a genius, he had resources, and he was the kind of person who, if he put his mind to it, could pull off anything, unfortunately he also sometimes seemed to have the maturity, common sense and impulse control of a three year old. Harry, while not a genius like Tony, was smart as well, had initiative, a propensity for thinking outside the box, imagination, and hadn't yet learnt that some things cannot be done, not to mention that he actually was child. The combination was scary. Not in a "might destroy the world" way, but in the sometimes even scarier "what the hell where they thinking when they made that" way.  
And now they had decided that, to make up for the scare she got after they 'improved' several things in her office, they were going to make something special to make her happy. The only problem? Tony was more or less clueless about what she liked, and while a genius with technology, this was a bit out of his comfort zone, he was not good with people, while Harry did have those social skills Tony lacked, but didn't know her as well, was only 12, and had yet to learn that being able to build a robot capable of "doing some really cool things" did not mean that same person was capable of picking out an appropriate gift, and thus tended to follow Tony's lead, even in those instances when he was the one who was right (being woken up to breakfast at bed could be nice, being woken up to a flying tray with breakfast that played really loud music not as much).  
Harry had told them both about his magic, and even showed him what little he could do already, as well as told about the school he had gone to last year, the trouble he had gotten into for using magic outside of it, and the treath of expulsion. This also added a little more to Pepper's preoccupations: she was now the one who would have to decide wether Harry would return to his old school, find a magical school in the US, or go to a normal school, Harry had left the choice to her. It was nice that he trusted her to choose in his place, but it didn't seem to matter to him: at his old school he had friends already, but they hadn't even written him during the summer, and he didn't really seem to mind going to a normal or magical school. Before coming to stay with her, and meeting Tony, his new best friend, he would have chosen magic immediately, but now he had people who cared, school was necessary but not a way to get away from home, and he had learnt that technology could be pretty amazing too (she refused to take into consideration Tony proposal to have him homeschooled, that, she thought, would end with her going crazy, or having a nervous breakdown, she liked them both, but sometimes she just needed a pause from the madness). For now she would wait and see, until they had more information on all tree alternatives.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man, was facing a dilemma: Pepper was away, both for work and to have a closer look at the magical school that had seemed most promising when they had looked into the information, and he was supposed to look after Harry, having been told that 11 or 12 year old boys should not be left alone for long periods of time, he might be perfectly capable of looking after himself, but might need the help of a responsible adult, and if one wasn't present Tony might do, as he was at least adult, and Harry was still too young to imitate (most of) his most irresponsible behaviour, and boys were allowed to do some things that were frowned upon when an adult did them. Anyway, the problem was that Nick Fury, the director of SHIELD, had asked for his assistance, and made it clear that it was actually an order, and he couldn't refuse it, so he could either leave Harry alone for a while at Stark Tower, risking Pepper's Wrath, or he could take him with him, which would irritate Fury. It didn't take him long to decide: Fury might have more influence, but he was honest enough to admit, if only to himself, that he would be in far worse trouble if Pepper was angry at him, as he still depended on her for several things, and she could make his life really miserable if she wanted to. Besides, how much trouble could Harry get into coming with him? Certainly less than by staying at Stark Tower, last time he had been left unsupervised in one of the labs only the timely intervention of You had prevented a serious fire, after he shortcircuited a new, experimental machine that shouldn't even be able to do so.  
Fury was less than thrilled about Stark's little tagalong, but didn't bother to protest too much, he just got one of his agents to show Harry to a room, explain where the cafeteria was, and make sure he understood that he was not allowed to wander around on the helicarrier, going anywhere but the places he had been showed, and it would be best if he didn't move from his room at all, to which Harry reacted by promising that he had no intention to do anything but playing with his videogame, omitting to mention that the game consolle had been heavily modified by Tony, and he didn't exactly intend to play with any of his 'videogames', having his consolle hacking into the videocameras on board the helicarrier for fun could be considered playing too, couldn't it?  
An hour later, a very aggravated Phil Coulson went to confiscate Harry's videogame, and tell him that hacking into the network of an agency such as SHIELD, even if only the cameras, could be considered a crime, then he went to Tony, to berate him for letting Harry play with such a piece of equipment. Now bored, Harry went to the cafeteria, and proceeded to make the most out of his unsupervised time with the snack machines, until an agent arrived and asked if he hadn't eaten enough sweets already, then he went to explore the flying ship.  
By the time the alarms sounded, Harry's sugar rush was over, and he had managed to get lost, so he was relieved to see Coulson, even if the agent was in a hurry to check on Loki. Coulson was not going to leave a child wandering around on his own on the helicarrier during an emergency, but unlike Stark, there were several things he feared more than an angry Pepper, and so he just told Harry to follow him for now. When Loki attacked him with his staff Harry was right behind him, and scared enough for his accidental magic to kick in, creating a spherical shield which lessened the blow considerably before giving out, leaving Harry unharmed but dazed, and Coulson injured, not critically but enought to prevent him from stopping Loki. Coulson dismissed the sphere as some new technology, while Loki recognized it for what it was, but didn't bother to do anything about such a young, untrained magic user. While Coulson went to the nearest infirmary to get patched up, Harry wandered off again. As the helicarrier shook he realized that perhaps it hadn't been such a good idea to go exploring, after all, a conclusion that was only reinforced when he hit his head against a wall. The people around were all busy, so he found an office and decided to wait there until it was all over.


	4. Chapter 4

The Avengers decided to wait for Coulson to join them with Harry before they went for a celebratory meal, for several different reasons.  
While Tony had, in hindsight made the right choice bringing Harry onto the helicarrier, seeing what happened to Stark Tower, and he was unharmed, except for some bruises he could have gotten anywhere else too, he wasn't going to leave him out of his sight for more than ten minutes at most until Pepper was back.  
Director Fury hadn't been happy to find a boy who was supposed to stay in the room he had been assigned playing solitaire on his computer, and probably only the presence of his assistant had stopped him from doing something he might have ended up regretting when he found him, instead he had scolded him, and told Maria Hill to get him away from him, possibly off the helicarrier.  
Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff were both anxious to see that their control officer was OK, having heard only that he had been badly injured during Loki's escape, but no more (Fury might have exaggerated a bit when telling the Avengers what had happened), and were also a little curious about the boy who probably had saved his life, even if it was more or less by accident.  
Bruce Banner had heard several stories of what Harry had been up to from Tony, and was looking forward to meeting the boy who, apparently, had managed to short circuit a computer just by turning it on, and was still allowed into Tony Stark's private laboratories.  
Thor had heard enough of what had happened, and knew enough about magic to suspect what had actually happened, and was a little curious about the young magic user who was friends with the Man of Iron.  
Steve Rogers was curious as well, because of a few conversations he had overheard parts of, one being when, after the battle,Tony called Pepper to assure her that "Yes, everything was OK...no, of course Harry hadn't been anywhere near the danger...Yes, yes of course there had been an adult with him all the time...no, looking after Harry wasn't a problem at all...", the other was Fury commenting on how "that damned boy was more trouble than Stark".  
Phil Coulson had no idea how or when the boy had learnt of Stark's theory that his first name was Agent, it probably would have happened sooner or later no matter what, but he would have preferred later. Upon hearing that he would join the Avengers Team for a celebratory meal Maria Hill had asked him to bring him along, making sure he returned to Stark's supervision, she also had passed along Fury's order to make sure he got off the helicarrier, without any sensitive information, without getting into anymore trouble, and possibly make sure, somehow, that he never made it back into Fury's proximity. Apparently he had made it past SHIELD's firewall twice, the first time with his videogame, the second time when he somehow got into Fury's computer, even if all he did was play cards, and the reason he got in was that the computer was on, and he just fried its fingerprint readings subroutine to use it, without even knowing. Hill seemed to like him, as she had told the director that there were worse ways to discover security problems.  
Harry didn't know what to think of the past few days, he had been in danger, and scared, but it wasn't really any worse than what had happened at the end of last year at Hogwarts, at least not for him, who had been aboard the helicarrier for all of it, and it had been interesting seeing all of it, and now he would get to meet some real superheroes, who had saved New York from an alien invasion, at least to him it seemed even more incredible than magic. He was excited about getting to meet all of the Avengers properly, then afterwards he would be returning to Stark Tower (or what was left of it) with Tony, who had to make plans to get it repaired, while they waited for Pepper to return, he had talked to her on the phone, and she had told him that she was on her way back to New York, but only to get him, then they were both going to stay at Tony's villa in Malibu until the Tower was back to normal.


	5. Chapter 5

Pepper had barely stayed in New York at all, she had just taken Harry and then left for her, now their home in California. She seemed quite shaken up over the whole alien invasion, and had been so worried upon hearing about Tony's stunt that she hadn't even scolded him about bringing Harry onto the helicarrier, however for now she was resolute to get Harry as far away from what had happened as possible, even if he hadn't really seen much action, probably far less than most newyorkers, and was more excited than traumatized about it. in California Pepper lived in a more normal neighbourhood, and an elderly woman living next door had promised to look after Harry in case she had to leave for a day or two to help organizing the rebuilding of Stark Tower (she had made him promise to not even touch anything coming from Tony's labs while she wasn't there, so felt confident he would stay out of trouble).  
Because of all this, Harry was alone when Dobby first visited. He woke up to find the strange being sitting on his bed next to him, but where not long ago he might have been upset by having some strange creature who said he was a house elf named Dobby tell him he couldn't go back to Hogwarts, now he was mostly curious, and while he didn't have any problems promising Dobby he wouldn't return to Hogwarts, he first did his best to find out why, not that Dobby was able to tell him much.  
All things considered he was happy for the visit, as he found out why he hadn't gotten any letters, and after he promised not to return to Hogwarts until the danger had passed he ot his letters back, and Dobby promised he would stop intercepting the mail.  
Then he sat down to write letters to all his friends, explaining how he just now had gotten their letters, about running away to the USA, getting adopted by his aunt, all the fun he had had so far, about the invasion and telling them that he probably wouldn't be coming back this year, as Pepper prefferred him going to a school that was closer to home, he also made sure to pass along Dobby's warning about "something terrible" that would happen.  
That done, he called Pepper and told her everything, who said that after hearing this he definitely wasn't going back to Hogwarts, asked if he was scared because of what had happened, then talked with Tony, who had told her he was already working on a shielding to keep Harry from interfering with electronics, and after meeting Loki had been thinking about modifying it to prevent people from teleporting in or out of a building, and he he had said that once he had found a way to test it out he would install it both at her home and in all the buildings he owned.


	6. Chapter 6

Harry didn't return to Hogwarts for his second year, just like he had promised Dobby, but he kept in touch with all of his friends by letter from the new school he was attending now, the Nevada Magical Institute, which they had chosen mostly because it offered the students the opportunity to return home on the weekends with two way, reusable portkeys set so that they would work only on the weekends and after getting permission from a teacher, and because they had normal subjects too, along with the magical ones, even if they didn't go into as much detail as muggle schools, but enough that their students could pursue a non magical career afterwards if they so wanted without problems.

For Harry it was a completely new experience to be followed to school by an adult who would miss him, and for the first time in his life he was looking forward to returning home from school.

He had already decided to make use of the opportunity to go home every time it was possible, so while the first weekend was spent just with Pepper, without doing anything special, the next week he came with her as she attempted to recruit someone Tony had heard of for a position in Stark industries.

Darcy Lewis had never expected to be offered a job from Stark industries of all things, but after hearing Pepper Potts offer she accepted immediately, she wouldn't let such an opportunity get away, even if she was curious about why she had been offered the job "So why are you offering me this opportunity, then?" "You came highly recommended, and because of what we heard about you both Mr Stark and I decided you would be a good addition to Stark industries" "Who did you hear about me from?" "Thor" "Really? Even if I tasered him?" "Yes, he doesn't seem to blame you for that". Right then the boy who had come along to the meeting exclaimed "I did it!", he had been playing with a videogame the whole time, and been ignoring everything else so far, so she was curious what game had gotten his attention to such a degree "What are you playing?" "Well...we might call it lets get into SHIELD's security cameras" "You hack into SHIELD's computer system for fun?" "No, only the camera's, and I didn't do much, I'm just using this" he held up the 'videogame' "Tony asked me to test it, it's made to allow people without much knowledge in that area to hack into the video surveillance of places" "Oh, Darcy, feel free to taser Tony if you see him behaving stupidly, and I might consider giving you a promotion".


	7. Chapter 7

Clint Barton was following Phil Coulson, looking forward to see what would happen once Coulson found Tony, after the sentence "Harry 1-Agent 0" had appeared on all the freds from the videocameras, as they both knew that Harry was probably Harry Potter, the nephew of Tony's friend Pepper, and since they knew he didn't have the skills to hack into the helicarrier's system on his own, thismeant that Tony had given him some piece of technology which allowed him to do so. Again. After he had been expressely forbidden from doing so already. Twice. This was going to be fun.

"Hello agent! I just heard that my little invention was a success!" "Are we talking about the reason why our system has been hacked into?" "Yes, it worked well, didn't it, I actually designer it for SHIELD, it will make things a lot easier for your agents on some missions, as they will be able to disable or fool security systems easily, without help, and using something they can take with them easily and disguise as a cellphone" "OK, so your invention was a success, but I would appreciate it if you didn't use the helicarrier to test it out" "Why not?" replied Tony with an arrogant smirk "It's more useful this way, my invention gets tested against some serious defences, and you discover any holes in them without risking a leak... and you really know you have something to work on if you get hacked by a completely normal 12 year old... and your expresssion when you found out was really funny..."

AN I'm putting this story up for adoption because I'm not certain how to continue it, PM me if you want to continue it


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